


The Perfectly Imperfect Life of Jared Padalecki

by littlepistols



Category: CW Network RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-13 23:16:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/829977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlepistols/pseuds/littlepistols
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of a lonely boy who, only in his imagination, has lived a life of daring and adventure.  But now, as an adult, this once lonely boy has to find a way to make his dreams come true and find the things in life that make him happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Perfectly Imperfect Life of Jared Padalecki

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the film, this fic took a drastic turn from what I'd originally planned. For one, it's set in Toronto. I attempted to make it authentic to the location but I fear I barely skimmed the surface of this wonderful city.

Jared Padalecki was born on a sunny day in May in a little suburb just outside of San Antonio, Texas, dimples already puckering his shiny apple cheeks. His mother, Anne, a former teacher with golden brown hair and intense hazel eyes and his father, Harold, a tall austere-looking yet kind man, welcomed what was to be their only son with the enthusiasm and love that a couple trying for a baby for seven years was bound to have.

He was their little miracle, their pride and joy.

From the moment Jared was born, his parents could tell he was different. Anne, who had some experience with small children from her years as an elementary school teacher, saw it the moment he opened his eyes and stared in wonder up at her, oddly prescient for a child only moments old. Harold, an accountant with dreams of sailing around the world, was just thrilled that his son was healthy and dismissed Anne's worry that Jared was "much too smart for his own good."

"Oh, hush, Annie," he told her when they brought the baby home and he failed to settle for hours, only calm when his mother was carrying him around the house in her arms.

"He was looking," she said, her voice soft in hopes of not waking baby Jared up, " _everywhere_ , at _everything_ , like he couldn't wait to take it all in."

Harold could only smile. "He's an intelligent boy," he said, the proud inflection in his voice hard to miss, "he can't wait to see the world."

"Yes," she hissed, looking stricken. "What will we do?"

Smile faltering, Harold shook his head. He'd always known who Anne was – capable, intelligent but fearful of what she didn't understand – and despite that he couldn't help falling in love. But at that moment he knew that Jared and his mother would always be at odds, too different right from the womb.

Despite his mother's misgivings over his character, or perhaps, Harold thought occasionally, because of them, Jared developed quickly. He smiled at the age of two and a half weeks, cooed and babbled whenever he was awake, his big bright eyes looking around at everything and everyone. Like any baby, Jared cried when he was hungry or wet, and he would fuss if someone stood directly between him and his latest object of fascination.

It was no surprise to them that when Jared was able to roll over, the first thing he did was try to roll away from his mother, the tinkling melody of an ice cream truck and laughing children outside beckoning him.

The moment he learned to crawl, he headed toward an open door, chubby little arms and legs edging him closer to the back stairs that led into the garden. And the moment he began to walk, it was away from them. Anne (and Harold, at his wife's haranguing) tried to keep baby Jared safe, erecting playpens and child-proof gates and safety-latching every door, but Jared was a curious baby, and he inevitably grew to be a curious boy.

And the older Jared got, the bolder he became. This, of course, worried his mother. She knew the world was a dangerous place, filled with treacherous people and menacing things, and she wanted to keep her only child safe from harm. Anne, whose own education had taken place in an all-girls' school run by a superfluity of nuns, was sure that if only Jared's curiosity were controlled (much like the nuns, in their stiff habits and starched veils, controlled the students) then she and her husband would be able to keep him safe. Harold, prone to doing whatever his wife asked, went along with her plan to keep Jared away from the bad things in life, though he tempered her heavy hand with a softer one when he could.

By the time Jared could walk and talk, when other little children were allowed to explore the world around them, Jared was forbidden to go out to play. Between the hours of 10 am and 2 pm, when the sun was strongest and he could get sunburned and possibly develop skin cancer, Anne had him drawing or looking at picture books. And when he _was_ allowed outside to play, he wasn't allowed on the swings, lest he fall off, or on the slide, lest he slip on a rung going up the ladder and crash to the ground. The monkey bars were off limits too because Anne feared he would dislocate a shoulder or tumble to the ground, and he was never allowed to go near the see-saw for fear of crushing his tiny fingers or hitting his head on the metal contraption and risking a concussion.

As a result of Anne's alarmist nature, Jared grew up watching other children play in the park by their home, riding their bikes in the cul de sac outside his living room window, and playing childish games, but he was never allowed to participate. So Jared began to entertain himself.

He liked books, even as a small boy of two, and though he couldn’t read them, too young to put the letters together to form the sounds and make out words, he would sit at the kitchen table, random book in lap, and look at the all the words, fascinated by the way the black letters swirled and curved and stopped and formed patterns only he could see. The words would talk to him, tell him stories, he didn’t need to _read_ them to know that worlds of wonder lay in the pages of a book.

For Jared was not only curious but imaginative. He could see dragons in the clouds, epic battles over faraway lands in sway of tree branches, and fantastical creatures in the knots of wood on the surface of the picnic table in the backyard. When Jared finally learned to read (at the age of three and three quarters), he found books alternately disappointing and enthralling, according to how the writer's imagination matched his own.

As he grew older and more sheltered, his imagination grew wilder and his daydreams and fantasies more intricate. At night, in bed, before falling asleep, he would imagine that he was a lone astronaut, black cloak of space surrounding him while he floated above the ripe smelly surface of the moon, or an adventurer spelunking in caves in far off lands, his stuffed monkey at his side. Vivid imagination meant vivid dreams and when he finally slept, he would thrash and kick: a knight in shiny armor slaying a dragon or a swashbuckling pirate felling a ferocious twenty-tentacled ocean beast.

Unfortunately for Jared, during one particularly action-packed dream, where he and Mr. Squiggles the monkey were deep sea diving off the coast of Palau, he made so much noise that he woke his mother. Anne, of course, immediately thought the worst. According to Anne's strict Catholic mother (and the nuns at St. Aloysius School for Girls), nightmares were usually the sign of some physical malady or mental defect, and Anne, beside herself with worry, immediately took her son to the doctor.

Now the doctor, a plump man of forty-seven, was not one to argue with Mrs. Padalecki. See, Dr. Bobbler learned his lesson long ago when he’d given her the news that she’d never be able to carry a child to term. Stubborn as Anne was, she proved him wrong, giving birth to a ten and a half pound baby boy, and had never let him forget it. When Anne came into the office worried for her son’s health, Dr. Bobbler immediately set about checking for this and testing for that and what he found was a healthy boy of four-almost-five who had the misfortune of an over-anxious mother and a father who wouldn’t dare to contradict his wife. But saying as much got him nowhere and Anne, convinced the world was much too stimulating for her son, decided then and there that she would seek a second opinion.

That second opinion came in the form of a young doctor, Julian Anderson, only three years out of medical school and with a newly open practice in the city. Dr. Anderson came highly recommended by a neighbor, a recently divorced single mother of two, though, unbeknownst to Anne, not for his skills as a doctor but for his handsome face and charming manner.

Little Jared had never been to the city and was enthralled by size of the buildings and all the people, so that by the time he was seated on the examination table his little heart was thumping wildly in his chest. Dr. Anderson, a novice when it came to children, quickly decided the boy had a heart condition and informed the Padaleckis at once.

Unfortunately, Anne's neuroses were validated and poor Harold saddened by the news. They took their son home, bypassing a visit to the San Antonio Zoo, much to Jared's (and Mister Squiggles') disappointment. Anne quit her part-time job at the grocery store (where stocking shelves with boxes of cereal and bottles of juice was less stressful than dealing with hyper eight year olds who refused to listen to math lessons) and put her degree to good use, taking on the education of her son full-time.

Though Harold was aware of Anne's uptight nature, he was stunned. He'd always hoped that once Jared began primary school she would soften her grip on their boy. But he was wrong, and he would live the rest of his (short, it turned out) life regretting not speaking up when he could.

As Jared would learn in life, good things – and bad – tended to happen when you least expected.

At the age of five, Jared discovered he could imagine the things around him into coming to life and, when he wasn't busy with lessons, he would create grand scenarios in his head where all his toys would get up and dance and sing, performing for their audience of one. When Jared was seven and a half, the neighbor's cat – which visited Jared so often in the backyard that he thought of Snowball as his own – was hit by a car. It was the first time Jared lost a living thing so close to him, and he cried for days and days. Harold thought perhaps a pet of his own would cheer his son up, as well as give him a sense of responsibility and, more than that, a friend. Anne wrinkled her nose at that idea. Puppies, kittens, rabbits and the like were dirty little creatures, she said, and would track germs all over the house. Birds would chirp incessantly and could carry flu and fish were useless creatures and gave her the willies. No, she told her husband, it was best that Jared not get attached to anything else. She put a ban on pets and never allowed a neighborhood cat in their yard again.

It was at the age of eleven and two thirds that Jared was first attracted to another person. This, on it's own, would not have been a particularly significant thing, as other children his age were starting to feel the same way toward the opposite sex, except that it wasn't the opposite sex Jared was attracted to. He knew enough from Sunday Mass and Bible study every Monday night with his mother that his parents (or, his mother, at least) wouldn't approve. But Jared couldn't help it. He saw the neighbor, a tall lean boy about the age of sixteen, out on the front lawn one day pushing an old gasoline-powered mower, his t-shirt tucked into the back pocket of his shorts, and his skin glistening with sweat in the afternoon sun. Jared, who was supposed to be studying for a history quiz later that afternoon, stood at the window transfixed by the way the boy's muscles flexed and quivered under tanned skin. He felt a stir in his shorts, a tug in his belly and he wasn't sure what was happening. Before he could even begin to figure out why he was reacting the way he was, his mother caught him.

Now Anne was a perceptive woman and she took her faith seriously, but she knew that the Good Word wasn't always black and white. When she saw the high color on Jared's cheeks and his awkward stance, trying – and failing – to hide his body's reaction to the scene outside the window, she knew what it likely meant. Her first instinct was to yank him away and set him to task, but she resisted. Her favorite uncle, Charlie, was himself a "friend of Dorothy" and he was the sweetest, kindest man she'd known. He had also been the loneliest, shunned by most of their relatives, so that by the time he died Anne and a cousin were the only family that attended his funeral. Anne didn't want that for her boy.

"I don't want you staring out that window daydreaming," she told him firmly, then turned and left. She found him seated at the table, immersed in his textbook when she returned, and hoped, in vain, that was the end of it.

But Jared, intrigued by the handsome teenaged boy, and his own reaction, couldn't help but look again the next day, and then the next. He tried to be stealthy, but on the third day of staring out the window at the neighbor, who'd graduated from mowing the lawn to throwing a football around with friends, his mother found him, nose pressed against the glass and a dreamy look on his face.

"You get away from there this instant!" she hissed, and Jared jumped, startled back to the present, to the dull room and the cool, icy stare of his mother's eyes.

What happened next was perhaps the second saddest moment of Jared and Anne's lives (the first had yet to happen, but unbeknownst to them, was only hours away).

Anne grabbed him by the shoulders, steered him away from the window, and pushed him down into the seat he'd been occupying at the table.

"I, I'm," he began, apology on his lips. But he stopped, his desire to know why what he felt was wrong (for surely feeling this good couldn't be bad, could it?) and so he asked. "Why can't I look at other boys?"

His mother gave him a stern look but didn't answer immediately. Jared wondered if this meant what it always meant; he was wrong and she was right. He waited.

"It's not that you can't look, but that you feel something when you look at them."

Jared flushed, embarrassed and feeling like his mother could see into his brain and maybe knew it better than he did.

"Is it," he hesitated, voice gone low and trembling, "is it wrong?"

In the end, he knew the answer before she spoke it. She quoted the Bible – Romans 1 – and told him that he must push those feelings away. Jared tried to argue but the truth was he didn't know where to start.

"Jared," Anne finally told him, sighing and slumping, defeated. She looked him in the eyes and, with a tone of certainty said, "it won't make you happy." In trying to choose her words carefully, she'd said all the wrong things. But this, this was the worst.

This was the thing that Jared would take with him when he left.

That night, Jared waited with trepidation for his father to come home, knowing that his mother would likely tell him about what Jared had been doing. It terrified him to think that his father, his co-conspirator when it came to flouting his mother's staid rule (though only on occasion and when they were sure not to get caught), might be disappointed in him.

Jared and his father had the kind of relationship he always wished he could have with his mother. His father was funny, full of tales and anecdotes from work and co-workers and he was, in many ways, Jared's lifeline to the outside world. He would often spend his evenings with Jared, watching television or playing ball out in the yard. And weekends were always a time when father and son would work on a household chore together, and could often be found holed up in the garage tinkering with tools, the radio turned up loud and tuned to the local oldies station.

Harold was a music buff, specifically music from the 50's and 60's. He had a modest but much-treasured collection of old 45's and a battered portable record player he'd had since college that he would play every Sunday morning. It was often the only time Jared saw why his parents were together. Harold would get up and drag Anne to the middle of the living room to dance with him, swaying to The Ronettes or Chuck Berry while Anne would protest and swat him good-naturedly. Jared would look on, watching the way they came together and fell into step, moved as one, a silly smile plastered to his face.

Though they rarely showed it, Jared knew his parents were deeply in love. He could see it in these moments and in a look, the skim of a hand on a shoulder, a smile across a room. Jared always assumed that he would have that for himself one day but with his mother's words reverberating in his mind, he felt the sting of them – and what they meant – anew. He liked boys and, because of that, he would never be happy.

Jared lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling and devising a plan to run away, join a circus or a traveling show, and live a life of solitude among the acts and performing animals. He was so busy imagining his new life that he nearly missed his father's return. When he heard the low rumble of his father's voice, he jumped up and pressed his ear against his bedroom door. His mother's voice, an anxious edge to it, broke through. Jared listened and imagined the way his father's brow furrowed, mouth tightened and heart sank, pink and brown and blood red muscle literally ripping itself out of his chest and falling to the floor. The slamming of the front door jolted him out of his macabre thoughts and he only just saw a fleeting image of his father as he jumped into his car and drove away.

For the first time in his young life, he felt fear well and truly grip him in its gnarled claw.

It turned out that Jared's mother never said a word about their son.

Harold, tired and just wanting to get home, had forgotten a gift he'd bought for Jared – a beautiful hardcover book and pen set, perfect for all that writing Jared liked to do – and went back to work to fetch it. On his way there, only two blocks away from his house, a woman by the name of Marta Jameson, distracted by thoughts of her cheating husband (ironically, with another man), ran a red light and ploughed into Harold's sturdy German automobile. Harold never made it to the hospital, dying on impact. Of course, Jared would never know, would always assume that his mother told his father that he was a queer and that his father, distracted and heartbroken, died because of him.

The day of the funeral, after Church service and the burial, Jared and his mother went home to an empty house. Anne, whose every bad thought about losing someone she loved had come true, was so grief-stricken that she immediately went to the living room and rifled through Harold's record collection. Jared watched from the steps as she placed an old 45 on the turntable, set the needle on the groove and collapsed to the floor in a fit of tears as _Hello Heartache, Goodbye Love_ blared from the speakers.

The next morning, Jared awoke to find the record player in a corner of his room, his father's prized vinyl collection stacked neatly beside it, the Little Peggy March record cracked neatly down the middle in two.

After his father's death, Jared and his mother became even more distanced, only ever communicating over pages of books and homework and dinners served at the kitchen table, the place where his father once sat, empty for years and years.

It is only when Jared is eighteen, having completed a high school curriculum, that Jared packs up his only suitcase and leaves home.

His mother, anxious that Jared is going out into the world alone is nevertheless resigned to the fact that her son doesn't belong in her home, maybe never did. He is so unlike her, so much more like his father and it hurts her to see that spark of Harold in his eyes.

There is a tiny part of her that admires his tenacity, and an even bigger part that envies his youth. She worries for her son but she knows that Jared will make a life for himself somewhere else, a life she could never give him; that she never knew how to give him after Harold died.

She tucks a wad of bills into his pocket, gives him a perfunctory hug, and watches as her son walks through the gates surrounding their little house and out of her life.

Jared finds himself at the Greyhound station on Saint Mary's Street, unsure of his destination, only knowing that he wants to see the world. As he walks through the rundown station something catches his eyes. A poster of a tall pointed building, a round observation deck lit up in the night, towering over a city, solitary in the black sky high above. Further enquiry at the ticket window gets him a one-way ticket to the city dwarfed by that tower. It's in Canada, a different country, and he thinks gleefully as he steps onto the bus bound for Toronto, he hopes it will be a whole new world.

_Five Years Later…_

It turns out that Toronto is indeed different from the small town Texas life Jared knew. It's a big, sprawling city, with pockets of multi-ethnic neighborhoods spread out over 243 square miles and urban areas blending into suburban areas so completely that it takes Jared nearly a year to figure out "downtown" from "midtown". Like many habitants of the sprawling city, Jared still only vaguely understands the parameters.

Jared's life in Toronto is a quiet one. He works at a café on Queen Street, a former vegan restaurant that still serves the local crowd lattes with soymilk and dairy-free biscotti. He busses as well as serves tables, pays attention to the customers, and takes in all the stories he hears. His co-workers are an eclectic group and years of working side-by-side have given them the feeling of family.

There is the owner, Misha, who is a staunch yogi and occasional vegan, Danneel, a an aspiring actress, Genevieve, a petite French-Canadian whose parents are staunch Separatists, and who is a part-time photographer and full-time wise-cracker, and Chad, who is, Jared thinks, Canadian as they come. He comes from a small town in northern Ontario, plays hockey religiously, and lived with Jared briefly the first year he was in the city. Because of this, he is probably the closest thing to a best friend Jared has.

Jared also volunteers at a local library, near his small apartment on College Street, reading to children once a week during Story Hour (though more often than not, he ends up making up tales of JP and Mr. Squiggles the stuffed monkey on the spot), and he always makes time to help out the older woman down the hall with groceries or fetching the mail.

He keeps in contact with his mother, writing her long letters detailing parts of the city he's explored. She never writes back but calls him once a month and, though the conversation is never long and she never mentions the letters, he can tell by what little she says that she reads every one.

Despite the wealth of good people in his life (and his intense and uninhibited imagination), Jared is lonely. He isn't a priest by any means, has been having sex steadily since hitting the city. His first time was in the back of a dark club, pressed against a sweaty wall, music and strobing lights overpowering his senses. The sex itself wasn't particularly memorable (he's had much better in the last five years) but with all his experience since then, Jared prefers the very first time if only for the fact that he couldn't really see his partner's face scrunched up or looking slack and dopey during orgasm. It's the one thing about sex he finds the most ridiculous, but it's pleasurable all the same, so he's learned to close his eyes and enjoy the fleeting feeling of ecstasy.

Jared's never connected with any other man beyond the physical. He's had a few one-night stands, a couple of men he casually dated, but no one he's ever loved.

It isn't until a cool spring day in April that Jared's life changes in one significant way.

Jared is never late for work. Has never been late in all the years he's worked at Misha's quaint café. But on this morning, he sleeps in, the power cutting out in the building in the middle of the night and rendering his second-hand alarm clock useless, and has to rush to work before opening.

He stumbles off the bus just as a group of business-suited and overcoated people get on, slamming Jared into the folding door. He trips on the way down and crashes into an unfortunate lady waiting for the green light at the corner.

"I'm so sorry," he tells her as he helps steady her. She looks alarmed and pulls away, knocking into the back of a tall, tawny-haired man.

"Oh, my," she exclaims, hands fluttering wildly.

The man turns and Jared catches a glimpse of besotting green eyes and plush lips before the man grunts a quick response, turns and walks away.

It's only when the corner has cleared and Jared, still apologizing profusely to the woman he almost crushed as she skitters away across the street, is about to head towards work that he spots it. He's still taken aback by the man, trying in vain to remember any other detail, that he almost doesn't see the sleek black hardcover book, a sketchbook by the looks of it, abandoned under the bench by the bus stop. Jared's curiosity, always with a mind of its own, grabs hold of him and getting to work on time is forgotten as he bends to pick up the lost item. He sits and begins flipping the pages, looking for a name or any clue as to whom the book belongs to. He quickly forgets himself when he sees what's inside.

There are portraits on every page, faces of everyday people, drawings of places, some of them Jared recognizes from his extensive travels around the city. It isn't the proficiency that strikes him but the beauty and attention with which each person or place is carefully rendered. There is an old lady looking tranquil though her eyes are laughing, every line in her face etching her years of experience. There is a man with a baseball cap, looking bored though his face bears a subtle joviality. On and on, as Jared turns pages, he is confronted with another face, another place, each more beautiful than the next.

And then he stops on a portrait of himself.

"Whatcha doin'?"

Jared startles, fumbles with the book, feeling suddenly laid bare, and looks up. It's Misha. His boss.

"Uh – "

"Before you say anything," Misha ( _his boss_ ), says, trying to suppress a smirk, "how about you put whatever that is away, get up and walk with me?"

Jared flushes and jumps up, matching his long strides with Misha's more relaxed ones as they make their way down the street towards the café.

"Sorry, man, I just got," he gestures to the book in his hand, still feeling out of sorts, "caught up in… "

Misha throws him a look. "Uh huh." He keeps walking. "Must be pretty special for you to be late for work?"

"I just found it," he explains, "right there, under the bench, and I was trying to look for a name or an address or something."

Misha pulls the book out of his hand and Jared suppresses an urge to snatch it away, cradle it close and never let it out of his sight. He watches as Misha flips a few pages, looks up, looks down, flips a few more. He doesn't get to the page with Jared's portrait.

"Hmm, this is some good stuff. Be a shame to lose something like it." He snaps it closed and hands it back as they approach the café. "You could put up a few flyers around the block, stick one in the front window. Maybe the owner will see it."

Jared agrees, then quickly gets to work. But he can hardly concentrate all day, his mind always going back to the sketchbook, to the portrait of himself, wondering where the artist saw him and what about him made the person want to stop and draw him. _Him_.

During his lunch break, Jared pulls the sketchbook out of his bag and takes time to look at the rest of the sketches. He gets through all of them and notices that the book is only about three-quarters full. There are blank pages waiting to be filled with life. It makes him suddenly sad.

"Hey, what's up?" Danneel chirps, pulling up a chair at the back table the staff uses when the place isn't busy.

Jared doesn't want to tell her or share the book with anyone, especially when the portrait of him is nestled in the middle, the look on his face saying everything he's never said to anyone out loud.

"Nothing much." He casually closes the book and lays his folded hands over it. "How was your date last night?" he asks, quickly changing the subject.

Danneel smiles and Jared is treated to a detailed narrative of her date with the "hot med student." The guy is, like Misha, a yoga aficionado, and attends classes at the Octopus Garden Holistic Yoga Studio, located close to Jared's apartment. It's how he met Misha and eventually got the job here. When he first got to the city, he would wake up early every morning for a god-awful dog-walking job nearby and literally ran over his future boss with half a dozen yippy dogs one morning. Misha, feeling sorry for him – particularly because he looked incredibly ridiculous with his massive size and those tiny dogs nipping at his feet – offered him a job at the café and he's been working there ever since.

"…And then he rammed his tongue in my navel while doing the splits, and – oh my god you're not listening to me!"

Jared is sheepish, finds himself apologizing profusely for the second time that day, and it's barely noon.

Danneel grumbles but secretly isn't surprised. Jared can be a fantastic listener but also tends to be a dreamer and it isn't the first time he's checked out on a conversation. She still makes a fuss though and only lets him off the hook when he promises to take over two of her tables for the remainder of the shift. Lesson learned, Jared tucks the book away and tries to pay more attention to the people around him.

For the most part, it works, though he still manages to screw up orders at three tables before Misha takes pity and, business slow for a Wednesday afternoon, sends him home early.

What Jared doesn't know, couldn't possibly, is that the owner of that sketchbook, the creator of all those beautifully rendered portraits and drawings is currently retracing his steps, frantic to find what is essentially a journal, filled with images instead of words, but just as personal.

Jensen Ackles is a Texas boy, born and raised in a suburb of Dallas, as well as being a moderately success artist. He came to the city to study at OCAD (the Ontario College of Art and Design) nine years ago and never left. The city and its people grew on him, though nine years later, he vows the cold winters never will. But despite his aversion to the frigid weather, he loves to walk around the city until he finds a subject that intrigues him, whatever the season.

More often than not it's faces, a profile catching his eye or an expression on a person's face, something subtle but nonetheless profound, drawing him to them so that he is compelled to put their likeness down on paper and attempt to capture what he sees.

Jensen is also a lonely boy, but not for lack of friends or lovers. With a face (and physique) like his, there is never a lack of men and women throwing themselves at his feet. It's gone on for long enough, ever since Jensen strode past puberty and finally grew into his "pretty" features, that he shouldn't be uncomfortable with the attention. But it still jars him all the same when he's immersed in his art or with friends, and someone interrupts and flirts or tries to get his number, buy him dinner, or just get in his pants.

Jensen has never been particularly fond of that kind of attention, except. Well, except that it tends to make it easier for him. You see, Jensen has never been good at the art of conversation. The truth is, he's never had to be. The people that he's been interested in usually come to him. This quality also makes it easier for Jensen to walk around a big city and stare at people without getting told off or threatened with police or bodily harm.

Jensen wishes fervently at this moment that this magical quality could help him locate his lost sketchbook.

As Jared makes his way back to his small apartment to pore over the pages of a stranger's sketchbook once again, Jensen steps into a dozen shops along Queen Street, stack of hastily scribbled flyers clutched in one hand, only to remember being bumped by a lady that morning as he waited for the bus. He practically runs back to the bus stop and is not surprised but still disappointed when he doesn't find the book.

Still, he isn't giving up hope and the next day makes his way through a few more blocks closest to the bus stop before entering a little café.

Jared is busy filling sugar dispensers at the counter when Jensen walks in, so he doesn't immediately notice him and Jensen, distracted and anxious, fails to notice the man he's seen on the streets at least a half a dozen times and has managed to draw mostly from memory.

When Jared looks up, he catches a glimpse of green eyes and his heart begins to beat a tattoo in his chest. It's him, the man from the bus stop. The man he could barely recall except for the eyes and lips and a sense of excitement rushing through him at the brief glimpse. Jared can only see the side of his face now as he chats with Misha, but what he sees sends endorphins racing through his bloodstream shrieking happily and awakening the butterflies in his stomach to flutter around ceaselessly.

Jared dares to move closer, curious as to why the man is there. He's sure he's never seen him in the café before (he would have remembered a face like that). He wonders if this is a friend of Misha's, another yogi perhaps. When Jared finally makes his way to the serving station directly behind them, he hears Misha say, "I don't think I've seen a book like that. It was black, you say?" He says this a little louder than usual, putting emphasis on the last words.

Jared's ears perk up.

"Yes," the man says, and it's clear that he's frustrated. "It was black, about this big," he holds his hands out to indicate the size, "and it was a sketchbook." He sighs and rubs the back of his neck. "It had, it was…it's really important. I need to get it back."

"Sounds like it," says Misha, still too loud and artificially sympathetic. "I imagine you'll be really grateful to whoever finds it."

"Uh, yeah."

It's then that Misha catches Jared's eye, and Jared gives a slight shake of his head and practically runs away.

Had he stayed, he would have heard Misha offer to call Jensen on the "off chance" the sketchbook turns up in his shop, and he would have seen Jensen hand Misha a flyer, glimmer of hope in his eyes.

He does catch Jensen leaving and watches through the dirty little window of the kitchen door as the most beautiful man he's ever seen slumps off into the afternoon sun.

It isn't until later when he's tucking his apron away that Misha corners him, shoves the flyer into his hand and says, "I trust you'll do the right thing, my lad."

Jared looks down at the messy scrawl, the name – Jensen – and the number printed up at the bottom. He knows he should return the book, fully intends to, but the same something that stopped him that afternoon when Jensen walked through the door is stopping him now. He could have handed the book over; it's still safely tucked away in his messenger bag. He could have introduced himself, flirted a little, used the grateful look in Jensen's eyes at having his treasured possession back to finagle another meeting, a date perhaps, maybe more.

But the idea of talking to the man who so obviously is able to look into his soul is so frightening that he retreated. He doesn't think he can look Jensen in the eyes and let him see any more. Though there is a part of him that wants to, the other part of him, the part that still listens to his mother, is sure that talking to this man – Jensen, his name is Jensen – will only lead to disaster. Because, for the first time in his life, Jared might actually want more.

It takes Jared nearly a week of agonizing over the flyer and the sketchbook – and his coworkers looking at him with varying amounts of pity and confusion in their eyes – to gather up the courage to dial the number.

"Hello, Come As You Are: the place for all your sexual needs. How may I help you?"

Jared drops the phone and only just manages to fumble the off button.

His mind reels. That shop is only blocks away from Misha's café. Does Jensen work there? Live above the shop or in a back room? He contemplates the possible reasons why the number of a local sex shop is the scribbled on Jensen's flyer and comes to the conclusion that he must work there. There is only one way, he supposes, to find out.

He dials the number once more.

"Hello, Come As You Are," greets a different voice with less enthusiasm. "The place for all your sexual needs. How may I help you?"

"Uh, is, is Jensen there?"

The person, a man, on the other end sighs. "He's not in right now," he says, sounding like he's put out. "Is there something I can help you with?"

"Uh, no." Jared stutters. "I actually, I kind of need to speak to him."

"Of course." Another sigh. "Listen, I know the inventory well, if you need some help – "

"No! No, it's not that," Jared interrupts. "I actually, I… I found his sketchbook?" The last part is said like a question and Jared feels foolish.

"Oh, you did! That's great!" The man on the other end is suddenly much more friendly and animated as he talks. "He'll be so relieved. He's been looking for that thing everywhere!"

"Oh."

"Hey, can you to come by the shop and drop it off?"

When Jared doesn't answer immediately, the man jumps in with, "You can have a fifty percent discount on any item you want, you know, as a way of thanks."

"Erm,"

"Do you need the address?"

"Uh, no." Jared comes to a quick decision. "I know where it is, I'll come by this afternoon."

"Great, man. Look, my name's Chris. Ask for me when you get here."

"Uh, ok. Thanks."

Jared can't pretend he's not disappointed but there is a part of him that is relieved as well. He's finally going to get the sketchbook back to its rightful owner and he'll never even have to talk to this Jensen. It's a perfect solution, he thinks.

Jared spends the rest of the day ignoring the distressing feeling of impending loss.

It turns out Jared is a coward.

Later that day, he sets out to return the sketchbook and makes it to the sidewalk outside the shop, before freezing.

His determination has slowly seeped away the closer he got, and he loiters in front of the colorful storefront window for five minutes before he notices a stocky man watching him from inside. He quickly pretends to be absorbed in the display of colored condoms hanging in the window arranged in the shape of a rainbow. When he peers up again, he sees the man coming closer, so he bolts back the way he came and ends up at work on his day off.

"Bonjour, sunshine," Genevieve greets him as he steps in. "How's it going?"

She's got her dark hair piled up in a messy bun on the top of her head and she looks three inches taller. Jared would normally tease her, make a comment about her height to which she would respond by calling him a yeti and they would continue bickering like siblings until Misha came out from behind the counter to mock scold them. But he can't bring himself to speak. Instead he shrugs and grabs a table in the back.

She putters around for a minute, checking on customers and then flops down into the seat directly across from him at the small, teetering table.

"What's wrong?" she asks, genuinely concerned.

Jared shrugs again and begins to play with the little packets of sugar on the table.

"Is this about that sketchbook?"

His head snaps up. "How did you know about that?" he finally says.

"Uh, kind of hard to miss you cradling that book every break." She points to his messenger bag, corner of the sketchbook sticking out. "You're like Gollum with that thing." She mimes stroking something lovingly in her hands. "And besides, Chad overheard Misha telling his wife about it at closing the other night."

Jared sighs. Chad being the biggest gossip at work means Danneel has probably heard about the sketchbook, too.

"Is there a reason you don't want to hand it over?" Genevieve asks, straight to the point as always. "I mean, besides the obvious."

"The obvious?" Jared asks because he sees nothing obvious about this at all.

"The guy's smoking hot, right?"

"How'd you know that?" he finds himself asking for the second time.

"It's Jensen Ackles."

"Ackles?" _Ackles._

"Yeah, that artist that shows his stuff at the gallery up the street."

Jared had no idea. He feels even more foolish now, like he should have known that a person so beautiful and talented and eerily perceptive was close all this time. He wonders how he never saw him before last week.

"Do you know him?"

"Mm-hm," she answers distractedly as she watches a customer pay his bill and leave. She turns her focus back to him, big brown eyes meeting his. "I've had some work displayed there, too, but we went to the same college, so." She shrugs and smiles. "That thing's his baby, you know."

"Really?"

"All his ideas for his paintings come from his sketches. He's been lost without it."

"Oh." He feels terribly guilty now. "I didn't – "

"You didn't know. It's fine. At least you've kept it safe." She sits back and folds her arms across her chest. "It's because you're in it, isn't it?"

"What?"

"That you haven't returned it?"

"How – ?"

She cuts him off with a roll of her eyes. "He talks about you. I mean, he doesn't talk about _you_ like he knows you, he just, he talks about this guy he's been seeing all over town."

"How do you know he's talking about me?"

"Besides the physical description? _'Tall, gorgeous brunette with a killer smile and dimples'_. It's the way he describes your face."

Jared furrows his brow, confused.

"That dreamy look, Jared. That look like you're on another plane of existence even when you're walking among the rest of us mere mortals."

Jared's never heard himself described that way. He's been scolded by his mother for daydreaming, reminded to focus during lessons, been nudged gently by his father when he drifted during meals or chores, but being isolated growing up meant that Jared wasn't ever really aware of how he could be perceived by the outside world. He's not sure he's comfortable with this description. He's suddenly feeling defensive, though he knows she has a point.

"You are the biggest space cadet, Jared, and that's cool. I mean, I love that you have such a wild imagination, and how you come up with all those stories you tell kids at the library and scribble them down whenever you have time is amazing. I've even read some of them – "

"Wait, you've read – ?" He's only ever shared his writing with Misha, whose BFA in Creative Writing makes him a great sounding board.

"Snuck copies from Misha's office," she states, matter of fact. "They're really good. I mean, _really_ good. Like, you should be _published_ good."

Jared tries to wrap his mind around Genevieve's words. It's a lot to take in.

"As I was saying," she pushes on, "you're creative and talented but you really tend to float through life sometimes."

He doesn't know what to say, though she looks at him expectantly. It hurts to admit that she might be right. "I don't know how to be any other way."

"Aw, baby," Genevieve leans over the table and rubs his arm consolingly, "no one says you have to change. It's just, there's a book editor out there waiting to get a hold of a talent like you and here you are hiding out in this café, and there's a hot guy down the street that can't stop thinking about you and he hasn't even met you yet. And then his most prized possession just falls into your lap. That can't be a coincidence." She knocks him on the shoulder with a loose fist. "It's a sign."

Jared makes his way back to his small apartment, the conversation with Genevieve heavy on his mind. He knows she's right about some things. He _has_ wanted to try and get his stories published. Misha's even encouraged him to call a few friends he has in the business, but Jared's always put it off, comfortable in the little life he's made for himself. It's not that he wouldn't love to see himself published, touch lonely little children's lives with his words. He'd dedicate his first book to the memory of his father, send a copy to his mother with a note on the inside. It would say, "See mom, you were wrong. But I know you meant well and I love you." Truth be told, he's afraid. He realizes he's a lot more like his mother than he'd like to admit.

He bumps into Mrs. Blum, the landlord's wife, as he makes his way up the stairs. She greets him warmly as he passes but doesn't stop, like he normally does, to listen to her latest complaints about noisy tenants or her sciatica acting up.

"Jared," she calls after him, "why didn't you tell me you've finally got yourself a handsome boyfriend?"

He stops and spins round, puzzled. "I, no. I haven't."

"Then who was the handsome young man at your door this afternoon?"

Jared's stomach drops like a stone. "What did he look like?" he asks, nerves tingling. _It couldn't be_.

"Oh." Mrs. Blum takes a moment to think, eyes cast towards the ceiling and finger tapping her chin. "Let's see, he was tall, but not as tall as you. Short brown hair – stylish haircut, not like that mop on your head – and very pretty eyes. Green, I think? Yes, yes. They were green. I remember thinking I'd never seen such pretty green eyes on a man…"

Jared doesn't hear the rest of what she says, his head buzzing with the knowledge that Jensen Ackles has been to his apartment. To see _him_.

"And it's snuck under your door."

"I'm sorry?"

"I said he left you a note and I told him he should stick it under your door. Never know, a nosy neighbor might come by and snatch it up and then where would you be? Without a note from your handsome new boyfriend."

Jared nods and he's sure he's rude as he turns and sprints up the steps to his floor, but can't be bothered to care. He fumbles the keys into the lock and wrenches the door open. A note is sitting on the floor, plain white sheet folded in half, his name printed neatly on one side.

He stares, disbelieving, and wishes he were small again, if only for a moment, so that he could imagine Mister Squiggles is his trusty advisor once more. Mr. Squiggles has befriended Krakens and battled Vikings (just to name a few of his gutsy adventures), he would know what to do.

Something inside spurs him on and he snatches the note up from the floor and reads it.

 _Hello Stranger_ , it says, small neat cursive slanting to the right, _I hear you have something of mine and think I may have something of yours as well. I would like to make a trade. Meet me at Allan Gardens tomorrow at noon in the Palm House. Don't worry, you'll find me._

There is no signature, nothing to indicate that it's him – _Jensen_ – beyond the obvious. Jared's mouth is dry, his heart is pounding in his ears and he feels his head swim ominously. If his mother were here she would say, "I told you stimulation was bad for your health." If his father were here he would pat him on the back and tell him there's nothing to worry about. "Isn't this an adventure!" he'd exclaim and he'd smile and try to make Jared feel better.

But Jared is on his own, no one to advise him against getting his heart broken or encourage him to take a chance on love. As he sits in his apartment, daylight fading to darkness outside his windows, he's no closer to knowing what he'll do: take a chance and meet Jensen or play it safe and stay away.

If anyone had known Jared as a boy they would have never pegged him as the type to turn tail and run from a challenge. He used to be fearless, before his mother taught him all there was to fear. And he used to be adventurous, not only in his imagination or his words, but in his actions. Small as they were and young as he was, Jared tried.

But while walking into the Palm House is easy enough, it's when he spots Jensen that the niggling fear overwhelms him.

Jensen is standing underneath a large tree looking up at a bunch of bananas dangling from a low-hanging branch. He looks like a mirage, someone Jared dreamed up in his mind – too perfect looking to be real. That more than anything is what has Jared running away.

Jensen Ackles is not only good-looking but gifted, and though he doesn't know him, Jared is sure that his insides match his outside. He is much too good for someone like Jared and, should they meet, it would only be a matter of time before he realized it. Jared is merely saving them both the trouble of heartache. At least that's what he tells himself as he boards the bus back home.

It turns out Jared is very perceptive. Jensen Ackles _is_ a good man. Donna and Alan Ackles raised him to be generous and sympathetic, fair and kind; and though he's a terrible grump in the mornings and has a quick wit and a caustic tongue, he is also a closet romantic. He, too, worries that once Jared, the man he's seen a few times and thought about incessantly for far too long, gets to know him, he'll find him lacking.

Jensen has friends and Jensen's had lovers but he's never had that feeling of _possibility_. Without ever having met him, and relying on Genevieve's judgment of character about Jared Padalecki, he feels that for the first time there is someone out there for him.

So when Jared fails to show, he knows what he needs to do.

Jared is sitting on his old, lumpy couch in ratty pajama bottoms and an old Hulk t-shirt, nursing a warm beer, when someone knocks on his door.

"Jared, open up!" comes Genevieve's muffled voice.

He jumps up and pulls the door open. He expects to see Genevieve, but not the sly smile on her upturned face, and what he definitely doesn't expect is Jensen standing beside her.

"Hey, so I thought it was time to make formal introductions," she says before he can protest. "Jared, this is Jensen Ackles. Jensen," she gestures, "this is Jared Padalecki." She shoves Jared back, manhandles Jensen until he's past the threshold of Jared's apartment and, looking satisfied, exclaims, "there. All done. Now go make babies together or something."

Jensen turns around to stare at her and Jared can only gape.

"But talk first!"

Then she's gone.

Jared is very aware of two things: first, that Jensen Ackles, possible man of his dreams, is standing so close to him he can feel the other man's body heat seep through his clothes and see every tiny brown freckle dotting his nose, and second, that he is standing in Jared's apartment with the possible man of his dreams looking like a street urchin.

"Uh."

"Hi."

"Hi," he croaks back. Jared feels it's only polite to reciprocate, after all.

"So, this is weird, huh?"

"A little."

Jensen gives him a disbelieving look.

"Okay, more than a little."

Jensen makes a gesture as if to say, "may I?" and Jared nods, moving and allowing Jensen to step further into the apartment.

"I hope you don't hold this against Gen," he says. "I asked her to come with me. Here. Now."

"Okay."

"I just wanted to finally meet you since, you know, you didn't make it today."

"I'm sorry," he blurts. "I was there! I just… I had… to go," he finishes lamely.

"Uh huh."

"And I have your sketchbook! But of course you know that," he goes on, words tumbling out of their own accord. He moves to the small kitchenette, where his messenger bag is hanging from a chair and pulls it out. "That's why you're here, right?" He turns and holds the book out. "Here. Sorry."

Jensen takes the book gingerly out of Jared's hands, a look of relief and what Jared would describe as joy on his face. He runs a hand over the cover reverently and Jared is reminded of Genevieve's words. A giggle bubbles up in his throat.

Jensen looks up suddenly, and the laughter dies before it escapes at the intense look in those green eyes. Jared is expecting a sound tongue lashing but instead Jensen smiles. "Thank you," he breathes.

"I – you're welcome." He feels the smile creep across his face. "But you're wrong, you know.” His smile falls away instantly. “I didn’t come here just for this,” Jensen clarifies. He places the sketchbook on a table and turns back to face Jared, unfathomable look in his clear green eyes.

A tiny well of hope springs up in Jared. “You didn’t?”

"No." Jensen steps closer and slowly moves into Jared's personal space. He's closer than he was before and Jared can feel the tiny winged creatures in his belly take flight. Jensen lifts his hands, gently lays them on Jared's shoulders and his skin tingles as the man before him levers himself on the balls of his feet and leans forward to brush his lips against Jared's.

Jared feels stupid with indecision but it turns out he needn't worry. Jensen studies his face before leaning back in and kissing him properly, tugging his bottom lip gently between his teeth, grazing his tongue against the reddened flesh before grabbing hold of the back of his head and increasing pressure. Jared feels lightheaded in the best way and he lets Jensen take and taste and tries to reciprocate.

It's only when Jared feels the urgent need to breathe that he pulls away. Somehow, one of his hands has become tangled in the back of Jensen's shirt, while the other rests at the nape of his neck. He starts to release Jensen only to have him press closer and kiss him again.

When they break apart for the second time, Jared's breathing is heavy and erratic, like he just finished climbing all 1,776 steps to the top of the CN Tower. He wonders briefly if kissing someone is always supposed to feel this wonderful. It never has before.

"Am I being too forward?" Jensen asks, warm breath ghosting over Jared's mouth. His already plush lips are kiss-swollen and dark red and Jared isn't paying attention to the words coming out of them, only the way they glisten in the light.

"What?"

"This," Jensen says, moving away briefly, "am I being too..." He falters. "Presumptuous?"

Jared blinks, letting the words penetrate the delicious fog in his mind. "Yes," he finally answers and Jensen starts to pull away. "I mean, no, you're not. Not at all." He can't help but smile when Jensen's furrowed brows relax once more.

"Good," he croaks, then clears his throat and tries again. "That's good." He leans in and places a soft kiss to the tip of Jared's nose, then moves on to each side of his face, his chin, each press of lips slow and reverent. Jared's eyes drift closed as Jensen grazes his teeth along the underside of his jaw, tongue following the same path. "God, I've wanted to do that for so long," he murmurs into Jared's neck.

"How long?" he breathes, question out there before he can think to censor it. Talking is the last thing he wants to do right now.

Jensen looks up. "Ever since I saw you," he tells Jared sincerely. It's simple and not nearly enough to quench Jared's curiosity, but he has a feeling that there will be time enough to learn the details. Right now, all that matters is that Jensen is standing there, in his apartment, looking at him with hope and longing and what just might be the beginnings of love.

Without another word, he brings his hands up to cup Jensen's face and reciprocates, kissing each eyelid, behind each ear, and finally comes back to those lips, soft and plump and wet and slightly parted in invitation.

As Jared leans in to capture those lips in a searing kiss, he can hear the first notes of a song in his head, a tune he's always loved but never really understood the sentiment until now. _Oh, Boy!_ he thinks. _Oh, Boy!_.

He only realizes he's humming along when Jensen breaks the kiss and asks, "What did you say?" Jared shakes his head. "Nothing," he mumbles against pillowy lips. Out of the corner of his eye, he spies his old stuffed monkey through the gap in his bedroom door, sitting atop the dresser, and he swears, just for a second, that Mr. Squiggles smiles and winks.

 

THE END.


End file.
